Japanese Brazilians

Japanese Brazilians

Nipo-brasileiros 日系ブラジル人
Japanese descendants in São Paulo.
Total population
c. 2 million Brazilians of Japanese descent (2019)[1]
Regions with significant populations
Japan: 208,857 (2019) Japanese Brazilians in Japan[2] 0.2% of Japan's population
Languages
Portuguese • Japanese
Religion
Predominantly: Roman Catholicism[3] Minority: Buddhism and Shintoism[4] Japanese new religions Protestantism
Related ethnic groups
Japanese, other nikkei groups (mainly those from Latin America and Japanese Americans), Latin Americans in Japan, Asian Latin Americans

Japanese Brazilians (Japanese: 日系ブラジル人, Hepburn: Nikkei Burajiru-jin, Portuguese: Nipo-brasileiros, [ˌnipobɾaziˈlejɾus]) are Brazilian citizens who are nationals or naturals of Japanese ancestry or Japanese immigrants living in Brazil or Japanese people of Brazilian ancestry.^[5]

The first group of Japanese immigrants arrived in Brazil in 1908.^[6] Brazil is home to the largest Japanese population outside Japan. Since the 1980s, a return migration has emerged of Japanese Brazilians to Japan.^[7] More recently, a trend of interracial marriage has taken hold among Brazilians of Japanese descent, with the racial intermarriage rate approximated at 50% and increasing.^[8]

History

Background

Between the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries,

In 1907, the Brazilian and the Japanese governments signed a treaty permitting Japanese migration to Brazil. This was due in part to the decrease in the

In the first seven years, 3,434 more Japanese families (14,983 people) arrived. The beginning of World War I in 1914 started a boom in Japanese migration to Brazil; such that between 1917 and 1940 over 164,000 Japanese came to Brazil, 75% of them going to São Paulo, where most of the coffee plantations were located.^[19]

New life in Brazil

The vast majority of Japanese immigrants intended to work a few years in Brazil, make some money, and go home. However, "getting rich quick" was a dream that was almost impossible to achieve. This was exacerbated by the fact that it was obligatory for Japanese immigrants to Brazil prior to the Second World War to emigrate in familial units.

On 1 August 1908, The New York Times remarked that relations between Brazil and Japan at the time were "not extremely cordial", because of "the attitude of Brazil toward the immigration of Japanese labourers."^[24]

The landowners in Brazil still had a slavery mentality. Immigrants, although employees, had to confront the rigidity and lack of

However, through a system called "partnership farming", in a contract with a landowner, in which the immigrants committed themselves to deforesting the land, sowing coffee, taking care of the plantation and returning the area in seven years' time, when the second harvest would be ready, the immigrants could keep the profits from the first harvest, taking into account that the coffee cultivation is biannual. They also kept everything they planted, in addition to coffee. In this way, many Japanese managed to save some money and buy their first pieces of land in Brazil.[23] The first land purchase by the Japanese in Brazil took place in São Paulo, in 1911.^[26]

Many Japanese immigrants purchased land in rural Brazil, having been forced to invest what little capital they had into land in order to someday make enough to return to Japan. As independent farmers, Japanese immigrants formed communities that were ethnically isolated from the rest of Brazilian society. The immigrants who settled and formed these communities referred to themselves as shokumin and their settlements as shokuminchi.

By the 1930s, Brazilians complained that the independent Japanese communities had formed quistos raciais, or “racial cysts”, and were unwilling to further integrate the Japanese Brazilians into Brazilian society.[22] The Japanese government, via the Japanese consulate in São Paulo, was directly involved with the education of Japanese children in Brazil. Japanese education in Brazil was modeled after education systems in Japan, and schools in Japanese communities in Brazil received funding directly from the Japanese government.^[22] By 1933, there were 140,000-150,000 Japanese Brazilians, which was by far the largest Japanese population in any Latin American country.^[29]

With Brazil under the leadership of Getúlio Vargas and the Empire of Japan involved on the Axis side in World War II, Japanese Brazilians became more isolated from their mother country. Japanese leaders and diplomats in Brazil left for Japan after Brazil severed all relations with Japan on 29 January 1942, leading Japanese Brazilians to fend for themselves in an increasingly-hostile country. Vargas's regime instituted several measures that targeted the Japanese population in Brazil, including the loss of freedom to travel within Brazil, censorship of Japanese newspapers (even those printed in Portuguese), and imprisonment if Japanese Brazilians were caught speaking Japanese in public.^[22] Japanese Brazilians became divided amongst themselves, and some even turned to performing terrorist acts on Japanese farmers who were employed by Brazilian farmers.^[22] By 1947, however, following the end of World War II, tensions between Brazilians and their Japanese population had cooled considerably. Japanese-language newspapers returned to publication and Japanese-language education was reinstituted among the Japanese Brazilian population. World War II had left Japanese Brazilians isolated from their mother country, censored by the Brazilian government, and facing internal conflicts within their own populations, but, for the most part, life returned to normal following the end of the war.

Prejudice and forced assimilation

On 28 July 1921, representatives Andrade Bezerra and Cincinato Braga proposed a law whose Article 1 provided: "The immigration of individuals from the black race to Brazil is prohibited." On 22 October 1923, representative Fidélis Reis produced another bill on the entry of immigrants, whose fifth article was as follows: "The entry of settlers from the black race into Brazil is prohibited. For Asian [immigrants] there will be allowed each year a number equal to 5% of those residing in the country..."^[30]

Some years before World War II, the government of President Getúlio Vargas initiated a process of forced assimilation of people of immigrant origin in Brazil. The Constitution of 1934 had a legal provision about the subject: "The concentration of immigrants anywhere in the country is prohibited, the law should govern the selection, location and assimilation of the alien". The assimilationist project affected mainly Japanese,

For decades, Japanese Brazilians were seen as a non-assimilable people. The immigrants were treated only as a reserve of cheap labour that should be used on coffee plantations and that Brazil should avoid absorbing their cultural influences. This widespread conception that the Japanese were negative for Brazil was changed in the following decades. The Japanese were able to overcome the difficulties along the years and drastically improve their lives through hard work and education; this was also facilitated by the involvement of the Japanese government in the process of migration. The image of hard working agriculturists that came to help develop the country and agriculture helped erase the lack of trust of the local population and create a positive image of the Japanese. In the 1970s, Japan became one of the richest countries of the world, synonymous with modernity and progress. In the same period, Japanese Brazilians achieved a great cultural and economic success, probably the immigrant group that most rapidly achieved progress in Brazil. Due to the powerful Japanese economy and due to the rapid enrichment of the Nisei, in the last decades Brazilians of Japanese descent achieved a social prestige in Brazil that largely contrasts with the aggression with which the early immigrants were treated in the country.^[32][33]

In the early 1960s, the Japanese Brazilian population in the cities already surpassed that of the countryside. As the vast majority of families that moved to São Paulo and cities in Paraná had few resources and were headed by first and second-generation Japanese, it was imperative that their business did not require a large initial investment or advanced knowledge of the Portuguese language. Thus, a good part of the immigrants began to dedicate themselves to small trade or to the provision of basic services, where dyeing stood out. In the 1970s, 80% of the 3,500 establishments that washed and ironed the clothes of São Paulo citizens were Japanese. According to anthropologist Célia Sakurai: "The business was convenient for the families, because they could live at the back of the dye shop and do all the work without having to hire employees. In addition, the communication required by the activity was brief and simple".^[23]

In the Brazilian urban environment, the Japanese began to work mainly in sectors related to agriculture, such as traders or owners of small stores, selling fruit, vegetables or fish. Working with greengrocers and market stalls was facilitated by the contact that urban Japanese had with those who had stayed in the countryside, as suppliers were usually friends or relatives. Whatever the activity chosen by the family, it was up to the eldest children to work together with their parents. The custom was a Japanese tradition of delegating to the eldest son the continuation of the family activity and also the need to help pay for the studies of the younger siblings. While the older ones worked, the younger siblings enrolled in technical courses, such as

A 2017 survey revealed that Brazilians of Japanese descent are the wealthiest group in Brazil. The survey concluded that Brazilians with a Japanese surname are the ones who earn the most (73.40 reais per hour):[37]

• 
  Japanese family in Bastos, SP
• 
  Japanese immigrants working on coffee plantation
• 
  Japanese immigrants working on coffee plantation
• 
  Japanese immigrants arriving to the Port of Santos
• 
  Japanese Immigrants on tea plantation in Registro, SP
• 
  Japanese immigrants with silkworm breeding
• 
  Japanese store in São Paulo
• 
  Fábio Riodi Yassuda [pt], a Nisei who became the first Brazilian minister of Japanese descent.

Integration and intermarriage

As of 2008, many Japanese Brazilians belong to the third generation (

Nowadays, among the 1.4 million Brazilians of Japanese descent, 28% have some non-Japanese ancestry.[38] This number reaches only 6% among children of Japanese immigrants, but 61% among great-grandchildren of Japanese immigrants.

Religion

Immigrants, as well as most Japanese, were mostly followers of

The knowledge of the Japanese and

A study conducted in the Japanese Brazilian communities of Aliança and Fukuhaku, both in the state of São Paulo, released information on the language spoken by these people. Before coming to Brazil, 12.2% of the first generation interviewed from Aliança reported they had studied the Portuguese language in Japan, and 26.8% said to have used it once on arrival in Brazil. Many of the Japanese immigrants took classes of Portuguese and learned about the history of Brazil before migrating to the country. In Fukuhaku only 7.7% of the people reported they had studied Portuguese in Japan, but 38.5% said they had contact with Portuguese once on arrival in Brazil. All the immigrants reported they spoke exclusively Japanese at home in the first years in Brazil. However, in 2003, the figure dropped to 58.5% in Aliança and 33.3% in Fukuhaku. This probably reflects that through contact with the younger generations of the family, who speak mostly Portuguese, many immigrants also began to speak Portuguese at home.

The first Brazilian-born generation, the Nisei, alternate between the use of Portuguese and Japanese. Regarding the use of Japanese at home, 64.3% of Nisei informants from

Japanese Brazilians usually speak Japanese more often when they live along with a first generation relative. Those who do not live with a Japanese-born relative usually speak Portuguese more often.[45] Japanese spoken in Brazil is usually a mix of different Japanese dialects, since the Japanese community in Brazil came from all regions of Japan, influenced by the Portuguese language. The high numbers of Brazilian immigrants returning from Japan will probably produce more Japanese speakers in Brazil.^[28]

Distribution and population

In 2008, IBGE published a book about the Japanese diaspora and it estimated that, as of 2000 there were 70,932 Japanese-born immigrants living in Brazil (compared to the 158,087 found in 1970). Of the Japanese, 51,445 lived in São Paulo.^[46]: 37 Most of the immigrants were over 60 years old, because the Japanese immigration to Brazil has ended since the mid-20th century.^[47]

According to the IBGE, as of 2000, there were 1,435,490 people of Japanese descent in Brazil. The Japanese immigration was concentrated to São Paulo and, still in 2000, 48% of Japanese Brazilians lived in this state. There were 693,495 people of Japanese origin in São Paulo, followed by

For the whole Brazil, with over 1.4 million people of Japanese descent, the largest percentages were found in the states of São Paulo (1.9% of Japanese descent), Paraná (1.5%) and Mato Grosso do Sul (1.4%). The smallest percentages were found in Roraima and Alagoas (with only 8 Japanese). The percentage of Brazilians with Japanese roots largely increased among children and teenagers. In 1991, 0.6% of Brazilians between 0 and 14 years old were of Japanese descent. In 2000, they were 4%, as a result of the returning of Dekasegis (Brazilians of Japanese descent who work in Japan) to Brazil.^[52]

Image gallery

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• 
  Japanese in a Brazilian forest.
• 
  Japanese immigrants with their planting of potatoes.
• 
  Japanese family in Brazil.
• 
  Japanese family on a banana plantation in Brazil (c1930)
• 
  A train taking Japanese immigrants from

  Santos to São Paulo

  (1935).
• 
  Japanese on coffee plantation (1930).
• 
  The first immigrants on the Kasato Maru ship (1908).
• 
  Japanese immigrants in Brazil.
• 
  Marriage of Japanese immigrants at São Paulo state, Brazil.
• 
  Brazilian couple. Inter-racial couple in Brazil; unusual during the '60s in rural areas.
• 
  Japanese in São Paulo-Brazil, Liberdade neighborhood, in a Shinto chapel.
• 
  Brazilian issei, (first generation of Japanese immigrant), reading newspaper in Portuguese, while the shown title is about Kardec spiritism (a French–Brazilian sect) which is quite similar to Shinto and Buddhist principles.
• 
  Group of Japanese descendants with Brazilians working resting after tree cutting, to clear areas for coffee plantations in Brazil, '50s and '60s.
• 
  Brazilians, second generation after Japanese immigration (sanseis) in rural areas, coffee plantations, São Paulo state, Brazil.

Japanese from Maringá

A 2008 census revealed details about the population of Japanese origin from the city of Maringá in Paraná, making it possible to have a profile of the Japanese-Brazilian population.^[53]

• Numbers

There were 4,034 families of Japanese descent from Maringá, comprising 14,324 people.

• Dekasegi

1,846 or 15% of Japanese Brazilians from Maringá were working in Japan.

• Generations

Of the 12,478 people of Japanese origin living in Maringá, 6.61% were Issei (born in Japan); 35.45% were Nisei (children of Japanese); 37.72% were Sansei (grandchildren) and 13.79% were Yonsei (great-grandchildren).

• Average age

The average age was of 40.12 years old

• Gender

52% of Japanese Brazilians from the city were women.

• Average number of children per woman

2.4 children (similar to the average Southern Brazilian woman)

• Religion

Most were Roman Catholics (32% of Sansei, 27% of Nisei, 10% of Yonsei and 2% of Issei). Protestant religions were the second most followed (6% of Nisei, 6% of Sansei, 2% of Yonsei and 1% of Issei) and next was Buddhism (5% of Nisei, 3% of Issei, 2% of Sansei and 1% of Yonsei).

• Family

49.66% were married.

• Knowledge of the Japanese language

47% can understand, read and write in Japanese. 31% of the second generation and 16% of the third generation can speak Japanese.

• Schooling

31% elementary education; 30% secondary school and 30% higher education.

• Mixed-race

A total of 20% were mixed-race (have some non-Japanese origin).

The Dekasegi

During the 1980s, the Japanese economic situation improved and achieved stability. Many Japanese Brazilians went to Japan as contract workers due to economic and political problems in Brazil, and they were termed "Dekasegi". Working visas were offered to Brazilian Dekasegis in 1990, encouraging more immigration from Brazil.

In 1990, the Japanese government authorized the legal entry of Japanese and their descendants until the third generation in Japan. At that time, Japan was receiving a large number of illegal immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, and Thailand. The legislation of 1990 was intended to select immigrants who entered Japan, giving a clear preference for Japanese descendants from South America, especially Brazil. These people were lured to Japan to work in areas that the Japanese refused (the so-called "three K": Kitsui, Kitanai and Kiken – hard, dirty and dangerous). Many Japanese Brazilians began to immigrate. The influx of Japanese descendants from Brazil to Japan was and continues to be large: there are over 300,000 Brazilians living in Japan today, mainly as workers in factories.^[54]

Because of their Japanese ancestry, the Japanese government believed that Brazilians would be more easily integrated into Japanese society. In fact, this easy integration did not happen, since Japanese Brazilians and their children born in Japan are treated as foreigners by native Japanese.^[55][56] This apparent contradiction between being and seeming causes conflicts of adaptation for the migrants and their acceptance by the natives.^[57]

They also constitute the largest number of Portuguese speakers in Asia, greater than those of formerly Portuguese

Cities and prefectures with the most Brazilians in Japan are:

In Japan, many Japanese Brazilians suffer prejudice because they do not know how to speak Japanese fluently. Despite their Japanese appearance, Brazilians in Japan are culturally Brazilians, usually only speaking Portuguese, and are treated as foreigners.[62]

The children of Dekasegi Brazilians encounter difficulties in Japanese schools.^[63] Thousands of Brazilian children are out of school in Japan.^[62]

The Brazilian influence in Japan is growing. Tokyo has the largest carnival parade outside of Brazil itself. Portuguese is the third most spoken foreign language in Japan, after Chinese and Korean, and is among the most studied languages by students in the country. In

The Nambei, published in 1916, was Brazil's first Japanese newspaper. In 1933 90% of East Asian-origin Brazilians read Japanese publications, including 20 periodicals, 15 magazines, and five newspapers. The increase of the number of publications was due to Japanese immigration to Brazil. The government banned publication of Japanese newspapers during World War II.^[69]

There are also supplementary schools teaching the Japanese language and culture. As of 2003, in southern Brazil there are hundreds of Japanese supplementary schools. The Japan Foundation in São Paulo's coordinator of projects in 2003 stated that São Paulo State has about 500 supplementary schools. Around 33% of the Japanese supplementary schools in southeastern Brazil are in the city of São Paulo. As of 2003 almost all of the directors of the São Paulo schools were women.^[76]

MEXT recognizes one

The Taisho School, Brazil's first Japanese language school, opened in 1915 in São Paulo.^[79] In some areas full-time Japanese schools opened because no local schools existed in the vicinity of the Japanese settlements.^[80] In 1932 over 10,000 Nikkei Brazilian children attended almost 200 Japanese supplementary schools in São Paulo.^[81] By 1938 Brazil had a total of 600 Japanese schools.^[80]

In 1970, 22,000 students, taught by 400 teachers, attended 350 supplementary Japanese schools. In 1992 there were 319 supplementary Japanese language schools in Brazil with a total of 18,782 students, 10,050 of them being female and 8,732 of them being male. Of the schools, 111 were in São Paulo State and 54 were in

In the 1980s, São Paulo Japanese supplementary schools were larger than those in other communities. In general, during that decade a Brazilian supplementary Japanese school had one or two teachers responsible for around 60 students.[76]

Hiromi Shibata, a PhD student at the University of São Paulo, wrote the dissertation As escolas japonesas paulistas (1915–1945), published in 1997. Jeff Lesser, author of Negotiating National Identity: Immigrants, Minorities, and the Struggle for Ethnicity in Brazil, wrote that the author "suggests" that the Japanese schools in São Paulo "were as much an affirmation of Nipo-Brazilian identity as they were of Japanese nationalism."^[82]

Notable persons

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Arts

• Erica Awano
  , artist and author
• Roger Cruz, comic book artist
• Fábio Yabu, comic book artist
• Fabio Ide, actor and model
• Yuu Kamiya, manga artist and novelist
• Larissa Tago Takeda, voice actress
• Daniel Matsunaga, actor, and model
• Lovefoxxx (Luísa Hanae Matsushita), lead singer of CSS
• Carol Nakamura, model and actress
• Ruy Ohtake, architect
• Tikashi Fukushima, artist (originally from Sōma, Japan)
• Kyoto, Japan
  )
• Oscar Oiwa, artist
• Leandro Okabe, model
• Lisa Ono, singer
• Akihiro Sato, actor and model
• Sabrina Sato, model and TV host
• Daniele Suzuki
  , actress and TV host
• Fernanda Takai, lead singer of Pato Fu
• Carlos Toshiki (Carlos Toshiki Takahashi), singer-songwriter
• Luana Tanaka, actress
• Tizuka Yamasaki, film director
• Mateus Asato, musician

Business

• Tokyo, Japan
  )

Politics

• Luiz Gushiken, former minister of communications
• Newton Ishii, Federal Police agent
• Kim Kataguiri, organizer of the Free Brazil Movement^[84]
• Juniti Saito, former commander of the Brazilian Air Force

Religious

• Júlio Endi Akamine, Roman Catholic archbishop
• Hidekazu Takayama, Assemblies of God pastor and politician

Sports

• Luiz Gohara, baseball player
• Luís Oyama, footballer
• Gabriel Kazu, footballer (Originally from Seki, Gifu, Japan)
• Sérgio Echigo, former footballer
• Sandro Hiroshi, former footballer
• Wagner Lopes, former footballer
• Ruy Ramos, former footballer
• Shizuoka, Shizuoka, Japan
• Cláudio Kano, table tennis player (deceased 1996)
• Hugo Hoyama, table tennis player
• Chiaki Ishii, judo wrestler (originally from Ashikaga, Tochigi, Japan)
• Vânia Ishii, judo wrestler
• Caio Japa, futsal player
• Kaisei Ichiro
  , sumo wrestler
• Gunma, Japan
  )
• Pedro Ken, footballer
• Bruna Leal, 2012 London Olympics gymnast
• sumo wrestler and the former Ultimate Fighting Championship light-heavyweight champion
• Mario Yamasaki, mixed martial arts referee, jiu-jitsu practitioner^[85]
• Shigueto Yamasaki, judoka at 1992 Olympics^[85]
• Anjō, Aichi, Japan
  )
• Scott MacKenzie, darts player
• Hirosaki, Aomori, Japan
  )
• Arthur Mariano, 2016 Rio Olympics gymnast
• karateka
• Paulo Miyao, Brazilian jiu-jitsu competitor
• Paulo Miyashiro, triathlete
• Paulo Nagamura, footballer
• Mariana Ohata, triathlete
• Tetsuo Okamoto, former swimmer
• Poliana Okimoto, long-distance swimmer
• Noguchi Pinto
  , footballer
• Rogério Romero, former swimmer
• Lucas Salatta, swimmer
• Sérgio Sasaki, Rio 2016 Olympic gymnast
• Tokyo, Japan
  )
• Rafael Suzuki, racing driver
• Rodrigo Tabata, footballer, represents Qatar internationally
• Marcus Tulio Tanaka, footballer, represents Japan internationally
• Bruna Takahashi, Table Tennis player
• Augusto Sakai, mixed martial arts fighter
• Daniel Japonês, futsal player
• Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan
  )

• South America Hongwanji Mission
• List of Japanese Brazilians
• Asian Latin Americans
• Brazilians in Japan
• Brazil–Japan relations
• Japanese Peruvians
• Japanese Argentines
• Shindo Renmei
• Japanese immigration in Brazil

Notes

References

• Masterson, Daniel M. and Sayaka Funada-Classen. (2004),
  OCLC 253466232
• Lesser, Jeffrey (2001). Negociando a Identidade Nacional: Imigrantes, Minorias e a Luta pela Etnicidade no Brasil. UNESP.
• Jeffrey Lesser, A Discontented Diaspora: Japanese-Brazilians and the Meanings of Ethnic Militancy, 1960–1980 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2007); Portuguese edition: Uma Diáspora Descontente: Os Nipo-Brasileiros e os Significados da Militância Étnica, 1960–1980 (São Paulo: Editora Paz e Terra, 2008).
• Jeffrey Lesser, Negotiating National Identity: Immigrants, Minorities and the Struggle for Ethnicity in Brazil (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999); Portuguese edition: Negociando an Identidade Nacional: Imigrantes, Minorias e a Luta pela Etnicidade no Brasil (São Paulo: Editora UNESP, 2001).

Further reading

• Shibata, Hiromi. As escolas Japonesas paulistas (1915–1945) (Ph.D. dissertation,
  University of Sao Paulo
  , 1997).
• Sasaki, Elisa (August 2006). "A imigração para o Japão". Estudos Avançados. 20 (57): 99–117.
  doi:10.1590/S0103-40142006000200009
  .

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Japanese Brazilians.

• Sociedade Brasileira de Cultura Japonesa Archived March 7, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
• Fundação Japão em São Paulo
• Centenário da Imigração Japonesa no Brasil (1908–2008) Archived May 11, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
• Tratado de Amizade Brasil-Japão
• Tratado de Migração e Colonização Brasil-Japão
• Site da Imigração Japonesa no Brasil
• Leia sobre os navios de imigrantes que aportaram no Porto de Santos
• Site comemorativo do Centenário da Imigração Japonesa que coleta histórias de vida de imigrantes e descendentes
• Center for Japanese-Brazilian Studies (Centro de Estudos Nipo-Brasileiros)